IMHO Criminals offer shilling bidding service for eBay

As a North Carolina licensed auctioneer, I was happy to know that NC requires a strict code of ethics, and it's sad that the internet has become a place where criminals may openly advertise ways to cheat innocent consumers.

In eBay parlance (I'm an ex eBay PowerSeller), "shilling" is the act of bidding-up your own property, a form of cheating that drives-up prices and auction profits.

However, in some jurisdictions it is legal to bid on your own property during an auction, and some areas allow the auctioneer to pull bids from thin air until their reserve price is met.  In a famous shilling case involving a California attorney who was shilling-up faked art, a stiff prison sentence was imposed.

Here we see a shill bidding service in the Dominican Republic that will place shill bids on your behalf:

XXLsell states on its site that it has 13,748 members and 1100 Powersellers. According to the source, if a member's account wins an auction through a shill bid placed by the service, the buyer is not obliged to buy, and the seller is not obliged to sell. However, the seller has to pay the fees - both the XXLsell fees and the eBay fees.
 

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